You're Telling Me (1942) User Reviews

Witless!

[JohnHowardReid · 5/10 · 9 November 2017]

Hugh Herbert (Hubert), Anne Gwynne (Kit), Robert Paige (Burnsy), Edward Ashley (Glen), Esther Dale (Aunt Fanny), Eily Malyon (Aunt Appleby), Ernest Truex (Handley), Helen Lynd (Miss Ames), Charles Smith (Bill), Romaine Callender (Dorsett), Boyd Davis (Driscoll), Harry Hayden (judge), Jan Wiley (girl announcer), Jack Arnold (announcer), Phil Tead (chauffeur), Grace Stafford (switchboard operator), Olaf Hytten (Fielding), Vicki Lester (Miss Parks), Emmett Lynn (scientist), Jane Cowan (freckled kids), Linda Brent (Chee Chee), Wilson Benge (butler), Heinie Conklin (scooter man), Pat Maier (girl reporter), Wilbur Mack (gallant reporter), Gene O'Donnell, Jack Gardner (reporters), Ralph Dunn, William Haade (doormen), Eddy Chandler, Charles Sullivan, Charles McMurphy, Frank O'Connor (policemen), Ralph Brooks, Kernan Cripps, Charles Sherlock (men), Fritzi Brunette, Vera Burnette, Gertrude Mack (women), Marie McDonald, Susan Miller, Elaine Morley, Nell O'Day, Kathryn Adams (girls).

Director: CHARLES LAMONT. Screenplay: Frances Hyland, Brenda Weisberg. Original story: Charles O'Neil, Duane Decker. Photography: Jerome Ash. Film editor: Philip Cahn. Music: Hans J. Salter. Art directors: Jack Otterson, Harold MacArthur. Set decorator: Russell A. Gausman. Costumes: Vera West. Sound recording: Bernard B. Brown, William Hedgcock. Associate producer: Ken Goldsmith.

Copyright 24 February 1942 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 1 May 1942. Australian release: 25 June 1942. 5,479 feet. 60 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: A young man gets a job with his family's advertising agency. His first duty is to hire a big-game hunter for a radio show but problems arise when the hunter proves to be a fraud.

VIEWERS' GUIDE: Okay for all.

COMMENT: It's hard to work up much enthusiasm for Hugh Herbert's lame-brained bumbling in this Universal "B", despite his character's wonderfully grandiloquent cognomen, Hubert Abercrombie Gumm. The film has a promising background too, but all that emerges is a rather tepid farce, as clumsily directed as it is witlessly scripted.

Despite its remarkably huge cast line-up - especially for a "B" picture - only the delightfully statuesque presence of Anne Gwynne, plus Ernest Truex pulling out all stops as a harassed advertising executive, save this astonishingly over-packed with support players' effort from utter disaster.

Behind the camera technical credits are stolidly routine.

How to handle an idiot in the work place.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 18 November 2016]

If you are lucky enough to find this rare B movie farce, look out for a squeaky voiced secretary who seems dumber than a box of republican presidential ballots, listen close for the voice. Recognize it? The actress's name, I discovered, is Grace Stafford, and upon further research, I discovered that she was the voice of woody woodpecker! Imagine how she entertained Halloween visitors and her own grandchildren! She's only a bit part in this screwy hour of silliness, but certainly not forgotten! If the screwy cartoon bird were to meet wealthy family black sheep Hugh Herbert, he'd be convinced that he was the smartest individual in that room!

Herbert is a wacky nephew of imperious Esther Dale, the wife of one of the partners of a huge advertising firm, demanding that Herbert be hired. But on his first day on the job, Herbert screws everything up, and Dale tries to prevent his firing by ensuring that Herbert is responsible for the addition of a major client. The comedy comes to a screeching halt thanks to a romantic subplot between client Robert Paige and Anne Gwynne that distracts from the comedy provided by Herbert and the severe looking Dale who turns into a zany character herself simply by being around Herbert. While this wouldn't be considered classic with or without the Gwynne/Paige pairing, it's a lot less memorable than had they just stuck to the farce. The hatchet faced Eily Malyon provides some great comic moments in encounters with the equally formidable Dale.